McDonald’s Hamburgers
A customer’s involvement
Lew Thorpe lives on the East bench in South
Ogden. His home is only accessible by a remote controlled electronic gate. He
lives there with his lovely wife. He has a full time gardener, a house painter,
along with several cleaning ladies. At times he has made lots of money.
Lew, “Mr. Super
Duper,” has the largest automotive parts and paint sales company in Utah, at
least for the moment. Many people doubt if he will be able to retain his sales
leadership this year.
A close friend
by the name of Hugh Downs is Lew’s sidekick at Lew’s five day a week coffee
meeting with the boy. Hugh can be called upon at any minute by Lew for consultation,
even over Bill Arnold’s constant talking. Hugh and Lew like to share
adventurous stories about their humble beginnings.
Life at the
McDonald’s coffee is normally blab, blab…about the speed of a Dewey Drone with
its gears in neutral, but this week there was suddenly an uncomfortable change.
Word filtered out through one of Lew’s cleaning ladies that Lew, who has been an
expert in the automotive parts sales world, has been underperforming a tad, in
the number of parts and paint sales for the first two quarters of this year.
Lew is the proud owner of “Ogden Auto Parts.” He was cooking dinner at the entry way of his
court yard, unlike your everyday kitchen, throwing pans and food around as if
it we’re going out of style, when he first heard about the sales slump at his
business from one of the cleaning ladies.
Is it true, is
there a leak in the dam, have the numbers gone down. Lew pondered, I didn’t win
twenty consecutive Blue Ribbons Automotive Gold Awards and free Hawaii trips
for my employees watching TV, drinking beer and eating popcorn. It took me over
seven years of hard work before I topped Larry Miller in sales, to become
Utah’s top auto parts and paint sales, and 2014 is still my goal.
No matter it's
become trendy to be a Lew doubter, considering his age, recent by-pass surgery,
last month (a stent in his carotid artery) and so on.
Utah Auto
Association secretary, Kay Arnold, noted the other day that he's an unLew one
in twenty-one odds to win the Utah Auto Association Sales Award this year. More
recently, a poll was taken and only one expert picked Lew to be a loser in the
Kings Personality Parts Sales Spa Bunch contest. Add in automotive analyst,
Lil' Wayne Morris, who totally blew off Lew's chances for this year’s Playboy
Magazine “Auto-mate Man Of the Year Award,” and it’s quite conclusive, now is
the time for Lew to step down alongside Sarah Palin.
Amid this cloud
of underestimation, Lew surfaced Monday morning in the Ogden City McDonald’s
(39th and Washington Blvd.) He looked, as always, Lew-tastic. He wore an
understated navy blue ensemble that contrasted elegantly against the new
Lesbian New Yorker's open look.
McDonald’s is a
rehab center for the many Monday through Friday Lew coffee fans. They come and
go between the times of the first sip of coffee starting at 8 am and the last
sip at 11:30 am.
One incident at
Monday's coffee meeting very noticeable indeed, was a Lew between-the-legs,
middle finger, which flabbergasted all the customers and the McDonald's cleaning
lady too. The finger thing is a stirring reminder of the taken-for-granted
great salesmanship that still lurks within the eighty-year-old one time, many
years ago, South Ogden JC President. In the middle of the same coffee meeting,
Lew nimbly jumped upon a table and calmly stated,
"I'm going
to win the sales parts contest this year! There is none as good as my
company!"
Bill Arnold,
the number one seated coffee talker, and well trained motion maker at Foot Printer’s
meetings made the motion that, “Lew is the greatest, great, and most powerful!
A W wizard! He is the people’s choice. Mr. Automotive Utah.”
He was
seconded by the cleaning lady who was standing behind the window. John Stone
“Stated all discussion is closed.”
It’s Lew’s
curse to have had a top notch successful business for so long. Now it is no
longer helpful having whispered compliments from cleaning ladies and Mr.
Arnold.
Lew along with
his lovely wife flew his plane out of town, a little discouraged this weekend.
His falconer, Zeroes stayed behind guarding the entry gate to acting as an
extra watch dog. You can’t make this stuff up.
His plan is to
next month take a boat ride down the Blue Danube into the Black Sea. Will there
be enough time to plan a come back? Will he be back as a hero teacher of his
Sunday school class or be disqualified from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir for
eternity?
Can you once
again change the tide Lew? The doubters are multiplying.
All that’s behind Lew, it’s been over a year
now he’s been abroad Nova Scotia, Greenland and back, had a hip replacement and
many visits with former B.Y.U. football coach Laval Edwards. Now again a regular
attender at McDonald’s weekly coffee, where this story was first written
To be continued…
DR KARL WALLACE
D.D.S.
To read more Dr. Wallace short stories go to: karlwallaceblog.blogspot.com
